Frankly, there aren’t enough words or superlatives in the English dictionary to describe the great Thomas Sowell. With an unparalleled gift to explain even the most complicated subjects in simple and easily understandable terms, few can match the pedigree and contributions of the Hoover Institute senior fellow. Author of the new book, “Dismantling America,” Sowell recently sat down for an interview with Investors Business Daily’s David Hogberg. And along with a few priceless jabs at Michelle Obama, sociology, Newsweek, and the public education system, Dr. Sowell discussed why he (like Niall Ferguson) believes America may be entering a prolonged period of decline.

“The only analogy I can think of from history is when the Norman conquerors of England published their laws in French for an English-speaking nation,” Sowell says about the Obama administration’s governing style, a style he characterizes as unconstitutional.

As someone who, if forced to, would label himself as more libertarian than conservative — though he has irked many with his support of American combat missions in Iraq — most noteworthy (and a bit shocking) about the interview is what Sowell believes the greatest threat is — terrorism, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the international scene. Questioned as to what some of the current markers of national decline are, it isn’t “huge bills that fundamentally change the way the economy operates,” reckless government spending, social engineering programs and the national debt which worry the economist the most, it is national security and President Obama’s foreign policy.

And Sowell makes a few not-so-subtle Neville Chamberlain analogies that are almost impossible to ignore:

Of course, the one that trumps them all is on the international scene. That’s where Iran is moving toward nuclear weapons. I’m just staggered at how little attention is being paid to that compared to frivolous things. If a nation with a record of sponsoring international terrorism gets nuclear weapons, that changes everything and it changes it forever.

Someday historians may wonder what were we thinking about when you look at the imbalance of power between the U.S. and Iran, and we sat there with folded hands and watched this happen, going through just enough motions at the United Nations to lull the public to sleep. That, I think, is the biggest threat.

Sowell also condemns the president for affronting our allies (in particular, the British and Israelis) in “clever” yet unmistakable ways the general public may not notice, further hastening America’s decline:

His first foreign policy gambit was to fly to Russia and offer to renege on the American commitment to put a missile shield in Eastern Europe…All he really got out of that was a demonstration of his amateurishness and of his willingness to sell out allies in hopes of winning over enemies. That ploy was tried in the 1930s and didn’t work all that well.

These are no ordinary times, with no ordinary president. Leading up to the historic “Hope and Change” election, commentators on the Right could not possibly have attacked Obama and his intentions to fundamentally change the identity and economy of America more than they already had. Even so, not only has President Obama fulfilled every single “fear-mongering” indictment down to a tee, he’s exceeded them — making even some his most extreme opponents look clairvoyant. So with keeping that in mind, and considering all the new challenges we face domestically, that one of the greatest economic minds of our time would still elevate national security and terrorism to such a level truly speaks volumes about the reality and situation of Iran.

Also citing the lack of expertise and national discussion in international issues, former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton confirmed to Greg Gutfeld that he was seriously considering a presidential run on Red Eye last week. Bolton-Sowell 2012? One can only dream. But hey, if a community organizer can get elected, why not someone with ten times the accomplishments and wisdom?

I’ve said many of the same things, myself. Just not as well, and not as succinctly. For example, I said:

If Iran gets its nukes, it will be able to do a number of things: 1) attack Israel, assuring Israel that if it uses its nukes against Iran, Iran will use its nukes against Israel; 2) shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which would immediately drive up the price of oil. The cost of gasoline in the U.S. would soar above $15 a gallon; 3) dramatically increase Iranian-sponsored terrorism worldwide.

If you don’t believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would pick a minimum of one of these options, you’re just nuts.

It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Iran is employing a lot of rocket scientists to create a ballistic nuclear missile capable of striking the United States and Israel. But when Democrats are in charge, even the most trivial aspects of common sense are akin to the most sophisticated form of theoretical mathematics.

“DES MOINES — Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.

While the candidates differed somewhat over the level of threat Iran poses in the Mideast, most of themsought to liken the administration’s approach to Iran with its buildup to the war in Iraq.”

But the fact that the failure to deal with Iran rests ENTIRELY in Democrats’ hands won’t stop them from blaming Bush when Iran rears its vicious head against the world. Any more than it stopped them from blaming Bush for the 2008 economic collapse in spite of the fact that they had had total control of Congress for the previous two years, and even though they had repeatedly prevented Bush from regulating and reforming GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – which were at the epicenter of the disaster.

It’s just what cowards do. And the Democrat Party is the party of moral cowardice going back to at least the Carter years, if not dating back to the waning days of the LBJ administration.

You can go back and review the record. Nearly 60% of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate (29 out of 50) voted to authorize the Iraq War Resolution. Furthermore, virtually every single top Democrat was on the factual record agreeing with George Bush and supporting his reasoning to attack Saddam Hussein –

– and yet Democrats en masse cowardly, despicably, and I would argue treasonously, turned on Bush and turned on our troops in time of war. For no other reason than to treacherously obtain a cheap political advantage aided and abetted by a mainstream media propaganda apparatus that could have come right out of the vile brain of Joseph Goebbels.

In addition to their opposition to the Iraq War (which again 60% of Senate Democrats voted for, only to repudiate and claim Bush deceived them), Democrats opposed the Patriot Act; opposed Domestic Surveillance which allowed the US to track calls from international terrorists into the United States; opposed Gitmo, even though it is the clearly the ONLY reasonable place to hold incredibly dangerous terrorists that no country wants; opposed allowing terrorists to be tried in military tribunals to safeguard intelligence techniques and personnel, and to prevent the court system from being hijacked by enemies of freedom; opposed even the most reasonable use of profiling to weed out terrorists intent upon murdering Americans; and even declared surrender in the vile “I believe that … this war is lost” statement of Harry Reid, the Democrat Senate Majority Leader. I could go on. It boils down to the fact that the left despise anything that help us win the war on terror or protect us from terrorism.

"RUN AWAY!!!"

To the extent that Barack Obama has done anything – ANYTHING – right at all in the war on terror, it has only been because he repudiated himself and demonstrated that he was either an incompetent fool or a lying hypocrite. Obama – after publicly denouncing, undermining and alienating the CIA – has continued the policy of “torture” by continuing the policy of “rendition” in which terror suspects are sent to other countries that use torture. Obama – after continually denouncing Bush over Gitmo – has STILL not closed the facility down two full years after usurping the office of the presidency with lies. Obama is using a surge strategy in Afghanistan after denouncing Bush’s successful surge strategy in Iraq and blatantly predicting it would fail. And Obama is now continuing the Bush policy of using predator drones to attack terrorist positions inside Pakistan that US Special Operations forces cannot reach.

Iran WILL get the nuclear bomb. Democrats guaranteed that Iran would be able to do so.

Iran will become a plague upon global peace and security unlike anything the world has ever seen at least since the rise of the Nazis and the abject failure of FDR and Neville Chamberlain to deal with the clear and present danger.

And when that day comes, America will be unable to meaningfully deal with it because Barack Obama and the Democrat Party made us economically incapable of rising to any significant occasion.

I’ve bought three dogs in my life prior to the one I recently brought home from a shelter – and all three came from backyard breeders.

The first two were Rottweiler/German Shepherd mix brothers (from the same litter) that were sired by the 3/4 Rott 1/4 German Shepherd dog from next door who beat the purebred Rott to the party. The third was a purebread Rott.

The two mixes were as healthy as could be. The purebread Rott had an umbilical hernia – for which the breeder took full financial responsibility.

No other health issues.

The two brothers were housetrained in five days. The purebred Rott was housetrained in a long (albeit very long!!!) July 4th weekend.

Furthermore, I had a pretty good idea what I was getting when I got my backyard-bred pups. I was able to see both parents (although in the case of the two mix brothers, I had to look over the fence to see the daddy).

And they were healthy. The two Rott/Shepherd mixes used to go with me on three-day backpacking trips in the Willamette National Forest. I would hike 12-14 miles a day, while the dogs chased each other through the trees. They would EASILY run over 300 miles in those three days. That’s healthy.

Now let me compare that to my little shelter baby.

First of all, you don’t get a whole lot of an idea what kind of a dog you’re getting, what breed it is, or how big it will likely be, if you get a puppy from a city/county shelter. That may not matter to you. But if it does, be aware.

In my own case, I got a “hound mix” puppy. What’s a hound mix? There are 23 breeds under the category “hound.” Moreover, the card said she was 2 months old. But what does that mean? If the puppy is 7 weeks old, how do they classify it? What if it’s 11 weeks old? There’s very little information to go on, and the employees’ knowledge tends to pretty much conform to the card. If you’re looking for a anything specific, good luck at the shelter.

It turns out my “hound mix” was a part Dachshund, part Labrador puppy. A Dachsador. She’s very cute, but I wouldn’t have picked her if I’d known she was part Dachshund. Without meaning to disparage Dachshunds, I was looking for a bigger, more athletic, and hopefully less stubborn, dog than a Dachshund.

That said, she IS real cute.

Here’s some pictures of my little Dachsador darling:

She’s a cute little Dachsador, isn’t she? She’s got webbed feet, like a lab, but her legs shorter than a Lab’s, while her body is longer. At this point, she’s got a nice, athletic, low-center of gravity without being overly “Dachshundy.” I hope she stays that way.

Even though she wasn’t what I’d set out to adopt, I loved her right away, and wasn’t about to take her back once I found out about the “weiner dog” part.

Well, read on.

The next thing I discovered was that, having lived in a cage for a good two weeks, in which this little piddle-and-poop machine was allowed out maybe twice a day if she was lucky, she was MUCH MUCH harder to housetrain than a non-shelter puppy from a backyard ever was.

If you get a puppy from a shelter, just realize that the staff have literally trained it to be at home laying around its own waste. You will have a much more difficult time housebreaking your cute little shelter rescue.

But that isn’t the end of it, either.

In my case, I went to the Coachella Valley Animal Campus and bought myself a disease machine, as well.

The Coachella Valley Shelter has a seven day policy during which they will take some degree of responsibility for an animal’s medical condition. After that, they will impolitely tell you, you are entirely on your own.

In the seven days you have, there is no possible way to find out that your puppy doesn’t have a potentially serious issue. You rolls the dice and takes your chances.

First it was bordatella, aka kennel cough. I noticed my puppy was coughing/wretching in a nasty way. I didn’t know what it was. Did I tell you that I’ve always obtained my puppies from backyard breeders, and that I’d never had any problems?

That wasn’t good. But I got ten days’ worth of antibiotics, and it seemed to take care of the problem.

But read on.

Next I began to discover that my little girl had little patches of hair loss. At first I thought it was from fleas and scratching, so I waited until after she’d had her stitches out from her spaying and gave her a flea bath.

To no avail.

I took her to the Animal Samaritan Hospital for her third multi- shot, and asked to see a vet to diagnose her. They didn’t have any available vets, as it was “spay and neuter” day, so I got an appointment.

Then I took her next door to the Coachella Valley Animal Campus, hoping to get her seen by a veterinarian there, and was basically treated like slime for suggesting that – given the fact that the puppy they sold me had two serious diseases – they should maybe help me deal with the problem.

Did I tell you about that backyard breeder who took total responsibility of the puppies she sold?

I insisted that it was only right that a vet at least look at her, and the senior vet tech came out, and, without bothering to look at the puppy, started telling me off. I asked her if it bothered her that she was selling diseased puppies that would literally make a lot of puppy mills look good by comparison? She indignantly said that the puppy was NOT diseased.

REALLY, MISSES MEDICAL EXPERT?

‘Kennel Cough’ is the term that was commonly applied to the most prevalent upper respiratory problem in dogs in the United States. Recently, the condition has become known as tracheobronchitis, canine infectious tracheobronchitis, Bordetellosis, or Bordetella. It is highly contagious in dogs. The disease is found worldwide and will infect a very high percentage of dogs in their lifetime.

Demodicosis, also known as red mange or “demodex”, is a common skin disease of dogs

Here’s a picture of what this “non-disease” can do to a dog:

Then the “senior vet tech” added insult to stupid. She personally villified me, loudly telling me that I had been nasty since the very first day I had come in, and that she wasn’t going to deal with me any more.

The problem was that 1) I’d never seen this woman before, nor she me, so how could she know how I had acted? And 2) I have been in that facility a total of four previous times (to pick out a pup, to take the pup home, to get the border kennel antibiotics, to have her stitches out), with either a friend or family member with me each time. I had never been anything other than pleasant. I’d never felt that I had any reason to be unpleasant prior to this moment.

The vet tech was trying to demagogue me, turn me into an “angry man” who had no credibility, so that others wouldn’t take what I was saying seriously.

I walked out. I’ll never darken the door to that shelter again.

The funny thing was I went looking for a mixed breed at the county shelter because I had decided that “mixed breeds” were healthier. But not from a government animal shelter, they aren’t.

Here’s the bottom line: think twice before you get a dog from a shelter, especially if it’s a puppy. People love the “politically-correct” aspect of an animal shelter, and how they “rescued” a dog or cat.

If you’re about rescuing a dog or cat, and don’t care how much it will cost you in vet bills, how much suffering your pet may have to endure due to diseases, or how much destruction will likely happen to your carpet before you finally have housetraining under control, then by all means, get your dog from a shelter. Just do it with your eyes wide open.

Don’t think I’m mocking people who do the above. I am familiar with people who actually deliberately seek out dogs with serious health issues. They love dogs, and are willing to go to the wall for animals no one else would want.

On the other hand, if you just want a good, healthy pet, with the least amount of potential horror story to await you, then start looking around the backyards.

Animal shelters are trying to do the right thing. I wouldn’t argue that. But you should read Andersonville, just as one example, so you can see that good intentions can literally pave the road to hell. In the case of Andersonville (or the Union equivalent at Elmira, New York), there were too many inmates and too few resources. And horror resulted.

At some point, even people who want to do the right thing become part of the disease and horror that they take part in. This vet tech refused to look at that; so she lashed out at me as “the enemy” instead. Even though all I wanted was a little help taking care of an animal who had had two serious diseases inflicted on her as a result of the shelter’s kennels.

When I was in the outer kennels of the Coachella Valley Animal Campus, I saw that a good 2/3rds of the dogs were lying in their own feces, their own urine, or in too many cases, both. There are WAY too many dogs there for the staff to even begin to adequately take care of.

I should have known then what I might be getting myself into.

The Campus is a beautiful facility. But somebody spent all the money on the appearance of the facility, rather than budgeting for the cost of actually caring for the animals.

This mange might clear up, but from what I’m told, there is a very real possibility that it will be a long-term, very persistent, very expensive condition.

I just wanted a good, healthy dog.

I could take this puppy back to the shelter and say, “YOU deal with her.” It would satisfy my sense of poetic justice – particularly if I was able to hand her to that vile vet tech. But that’s just not the way I roll. I took responsibility for this animal, even if I got screwed by a dirty, disease-ridden, bureaucratic-ridden den of incompetence.

Say what you want about how anti-pc I am, but I will NEVER get a dog from an animal shelter again. And I strongly advise you that caveat emptor applies more at your government animal shelter than it does your used car lot.

MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee County Board spent part of the day debating a measure that would call for the county to boycott doing business with companies in Arizona.

Communities around the nation have passed similar measures in response to a law in Arizona that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

There was an odd moment during the debate when Supervisor Peggy West stood up and seemed to be confused about her geography. “If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border,” West said during debate.

And here’s the video:

Make no mistake: this is no dumber than any other reason liberals have given to attack the Arizona law. The only difference is that this particular reason can be refuted with a globe or a map that would likely be found in any kindergarten classroom, whereas many of the other stupid reasons require the ability to read adult-level materials, such as the Arizona law itself.

Frankly, I have more intellectual respect for Peggy West. I mean, maybe she’s smart enough to realize that she’s too stupid to be the president or the attorney general, unlike Barack Obama and Eric Holder. And that would make her smarter than both of them.

I recently posted the following under a different title. But it seems like a good thing to post again, just so we can see Democrats at work:

It doesn’t matter if virtually all the actual violent acts and threats of violent acts are coming from the left. It’s all the tea party’s fault.

It also doesn’t matter that Article. IV., Section. 4 of the Constitution states, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union, a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.”

Mexican drug cartels have set up shop on American soil, maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona from which their scouts can monitor every move made by law enforcement officials, federal agents tell Fox News.

The scouts are supplied by drivers who bring them food, water, batteries for radios — all the items they need to stay in the wilderness for a long time.

“To say that this area is out of control is an understatement,” said an agent who patrols the area and asked not to be named. “We (federal border agents), as well as the Pima County Sheriff Office and the Bureau of Land Management, can attest to that.”

A Mexican drug cartel has threatened police officers in Arizona who confiscated a marijuana shipment, prompting the small town department to warn its officers to remain armed and have radios with them at all times, and keep their body armor handy.

It doesn’t matter that the Arizona law is completely constitutional, or that the Arizona law actually merely gives the state the power to enforce existing federal law, or that Arizona actually watered the law down to deal with the avalanche of lies being told by the left:

The simple fact of the matter is that the federal law is FAR “harsher” or “more racist” than the Arizona law (see also here for a more detailed analysis). The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously (that means even Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted for it!) in the 2005 Mueller v. Mena case that the federal authorities have the right to demand citizenship status at any time for any reason without the need to demonstrate reasonable suspicion [Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93 (2005) (“the officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her . . . immigration status.”)]. The Arizona law is actually FAR more restrictive than the current federal law that the Obama White House WILL NOT ENFORCE. And the Arizona law is completely constitutional for that reason. The left has demonized, demagogued, and most certainly flat-out lied about the Arizona law.

“Costs on average for every illegal alien headed household about $19,600 more if they consume the city services than they pay in taxes, so the rest of the taxpayers have to part costs. Schools become overcrowded, English as second language programs push out other programs.”

It doesn’t matter that the same illegal immigrants who are a burden to our country are in fact a burden to their own damn country. And that if they’re a burden to their own country, how in the hell are they not a burden to ours?

The Democrat Party demands that nothing be done at all to stop illegal immigration because they believe they can use the issue to demagogue their way to winning the Hispanic vote. The Democrat Party demands that Arizona not be allowed to do anything whatsoever to protect themselves.

It doesn’t matter that the Democrat Party and the mainstream media that writes their propaganda are officially hypocritical, demagogic, and yes, frankly both evil and treasonous as well.

We are becoming an out-of-control society on the verge of collapse, and we need to purge ourselves of Democrats as much as we need to purge illegal immigrants.

“In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae’s chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case’s D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.”

In the current crisis, their biggest backers have been Democrats such as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (Mass.). Two members of Mr. Obama’s political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.

“Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949 in Seattle, Washington) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton. He is currently employed by Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign as an economic adviser.”

But that last sentence has been scrubbed from Wikipedia within the last two days, and all of a sudden Franklin Raines somehow isn’t an Obama adviser anymore. It’s almost like when Barack Obama said of Jeremiah Wright, “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me…”, until, you know, he denounced him.

But when Barack Obama denounces something, all mention of it as being in any way associated with him somehow gets purged – even if that relationship lasted 23 years. Now when it comes to the McCain denunciation of Franklin Raines as an Obama adviser, The Washington Post faults McCain for relying on…the Washington Post.

But, try as he might to distance himself from his erstwhile adviser, what Barack Obama CAN’T do is deny that Franklin Raines is a DEMOCRAT. A Democrat who dredges up all sorts of bad mojo for Democrats as they try to frantically scrub their hands of all the red ink and all the corruption that took place during Franklin Raines’ tenure at Fannie Mae.

The former Fannie Mae accountant who raised questions about the mortgage giant’s bookkeeping said Wednesday that he took his concerns directly to Chief Executive Franklin Raines in 2002 and asked him to investigate.

The disclosure by Roger Barnes, who left Fannie Mae in October 2003, came as Raines and Chief Financial Officer Timothy Howard defended the company’s accounting and told Congress that regulators’ allegations of earnings manipulation represented an interpretation of complex rules.

At a House subcommittee hearing, Raines and Howard testified under oath in their first public appearance since news surfaced Sept. 22 about the allegations and a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into government-sponsored Fannie Mae. Lawmakers questioned them closely about an instance in 1998 in which accounting rules were said to have been deliberately violated so that top executives could collect full bonuses.

“This is a very serious allegation, and I deny that it occurred,” Raines testified.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae manipulated accounting so that executives could collect millions in bonuses as senior management deceived investors and stonewalled regulators at a company whose prestigious image was phony, a federal agency charged Tuesday.

The blistering report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the product of an extensive three-year investigation, was issued as the government-sponsored company struggles to emerge from an $11 billion accounting scandal.

Earlier, a person familiar with the situation said that Fannie Mae was being fined between $300 million and $500 million for the alleged manipulation of accounting to facilitate executives’ bonuses, in a settlement with the housing oversight agency.

“The image of Fannie Mae as one of the lowest-risk and ‘best in class’ institutions was a facade,” James B. Lockhart, the acting director of OFHEO, said in a statement as the report was released. “Our examination found an environment where the ends justified the means. Senior management manipulated accounting, reaped maximum, undeserved bonuses, and prevented the rest of the world from knowing.”

The report also faulted Fannie Mae’s board of directors for failing to exercise its oversight responsibilities and failing to discover “a wide variety of unsafe and unsound practices” at the largest buyer and guarantor of home mortgages in the country.

The OFHEO review, involving nearly 8 million pages of documents, details what the agency calls an arrogant and unethical corporate culture. From 1998 to mid-2004, the smooth growth in profits and precisely-hit earnings targets each quarter reported by Fannie Mae were “illusions” deliberately created by senior management using faulty accounting, the report says.

The accounting manipulation tied to executives’ bonuses occurred from 1998 to 2004, according to the report, a much longer period than was previously known.

Lest any not know it, Franklin Raines was a Clinton appointee.

A Wikipedia article (we’ll see how soon it takes to purge it!) talking about the Clinton years is extremely informative in the current ruinous aftermath:

The Clinton Administration’s regulatory revisions [1] with an effective starting date of January 31, 1995 were credited with substantially increasing the number and aggregate amount of loans to small businesses and to low- and moderate-income borrowers for home loans. Part of the increase in home loans was due to increased efficiency and the genesis of lenders, like Countrywide, that do not mitigate loan risk with savings deposits as do traditional banks using the new subprime authorization. This is known as the secondary market for mortgage loans. The revisions allowed the securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages. The first public securitization of CRA loans started in 1997 by Bear Stearns. [2] The number of CRA mortgage loans increased by 39 percent between 1993 and 1998, while other loans increased by only 17 percent. [3] [4]

Bill Clinton walks off the stage as the conquering hero in the mythical narrative of the liberal media, but IT WAS THESE VERY LOANS BY THESE VERY LENDERS THAT RESULTED IN THE DISASTER WE ARE NOW SUFFERING.

President Bush tried to reform Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the entire housing finance industry before it was too late:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

But his effort to reform the housing finance industry by reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was blocked – BY DEMOCRATS.

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

Barney Frank – the same liberal doofus who said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fine and not facing any kind of financial crisis – is still around, and still in charge of the Financial Services Committee.

Mel Watts, the race-card playing liberal who opposed reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the grounds that it would prevent poor blacks from getting home loans, is also still around.

And though Barack Obama may be able to distance himself from Franklin Raines – however falsely – he can’t distance himself from another prominent “adviser” – Jim Johnson. Johnson was briefly appointed to head Obama’s vice presidential selection committee until it was discovered that he had benefited from sweetheart Countrywide loans. And Johnson was another Fannie Mae CEO who was Franklin Raines’ predecessor at Fannie Mae. He joins a long list of Clinton Democrats who “served” at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and walked away with millions. Jim Johnson also sits on the board at Goldman Sachs, a company that was also massively invested in subprime loans but managed to sell them short and preserve itself.

Now allow me to provide the contrast between Obama – who is tied by both party and by big money contributions to his political career – with John McCain. The previously quotedWashington Post says:

This is not an easy one for the Illinois senator because of the companies’ close ties to his party. To be sure, both Republican and Democratic politicos have held well-paid positions in the two firms or have partaken of the tens of millions that they spend on lobbying. But a few Republicans, such as Mr. McCain and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), who has been chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, have taken them on over the years, warning about their use of an implicit government guarantee to pursue private profits. Meanwhile, Democratswere not only politically but intellectually committed to the companies, seeing them as innovative public-private institutions that have been a boon to home ownership. In the current crisis, their biggest backers have been Democrats such as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (Mass.). Two members of Mr. Obama’s political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.

In this speech, McCain managed to predict the entire collapse that has forced the government to eat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with Bear Stearns and AIG. He hammers the falsification of financial records to benefit executives, including Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of whom have worked as advisers to Barack Obama this year. McCain also noted the power of their lobbying efforts to forestall oversight over their business practices. He finishes with the warning that proved all too prescient over the past few days and weeks.

John McCain fought in vain to prevent the collapse of the housing finance market, and would have succeeded had it not been for utterly determined Democratic opposition. Barack Obama, for his part, led the lists of campaign contribution recipients from both Fannie and Freddie and from disgraced and belly-up Lehman Bros.

There are only 43 days left in this election. That is not very long for the American people to realize that they are being lied to by the very people and the very party that caused the disaster that has so angered the electorate.